Fabrication of electron-beam microcolumn aligned by scanning tunneling microscope

Performance of a low-energy electron beam was tested in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) aligned field-emission microcolumn system made by using silicon microfabricated electrostatic lenses. The system consists of a STM aligned field emitter, an extractor, an accelerator, a beam dump, a quadrupole deflector, and an einzel lens. The beam current of 1 nA with a diameter of similar to 0.2 mu m was observed when a sample was placed less than 2 mm away from the exiting einzel lens. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.